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Chronology 2003 Newletter (continued) Don't deny the Jewish state the right of self-defence For centuries Jews have been persecuted for their religion, resulting in a virtually uninterrupted series of mortifying and humiliating measures, expulsions and pogroms. Then, in the 19th century, race took the place of religion, leading inexorably to the Shoah and the extermination of two thirds of Europe's Jews. Today anti-Semitism has its roots in the existence of the state of Israel and in the attachment of Diaspora Jews to that state. This anti-Semitism is sustained by the Arab countries and by Palestinian terrorist groups. Remember the attacks on synagogues in Vienna, Budapest, Istanbul, the rue Copernic in Paris, the massacre in the rue des Rosiers, at Goldenberg's restaurant, and so many other Jewish symbols that have become targets for Palestinian extremists, supported by the infrastructure of the Arab countries that financed and trained them, supplied them with arms, safe havens and impunity. Europe has already shown its willingness to forget how the murderers of the lsraeli athletes at the Munich Olympics, or the killers of young children in crèches in so many kibbutzim across Israel, were fêted as heroes in the Arab countries. The French Revolution may have freed the Jews, but in Christian Europe's collective unconsciousness the Jewish people has not yet won the right to be considered equal to other people. The Jews, yes: Israel, no. The paradox lies in the fact that the nations should allow the Jewish people the right to reconstitute as a state, but then deny that state the right to defend itself as such. This right was denied as far back as 1967. The message from General de Gaulle at the time was, "Do not defend yourself unless attacked. No pre-emptive self-defence." When victory was won, the result was the famous formula, "A self-confident and overbearing people". ln 1973, though victim of a surprise attack on three fronts -from the south by Egypt, from the north by Syria, and from the east by Jordan and Iraq -Israel still failed to find favour with French diplomacy and the French government. The French government imposed an embargo on Israel, refused permission to land in France to US aircraft carrying material vital to Israel's defence, and summed up France's foreign policy regarding the war on Israel in the words of the then Foreign Affairs Minister Michel Jobert; "I find nothing astonishing in the Arab countries wishing to go back home". France's policy is no different today, continuing to deny Israel the right to defend itself and to protect its citizens. The suicide bombers and their cortege of innocent Israeli victims, including so many survivors of the Shoah, are nothing more for France than the consequence of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. Those who reason in these terms forget, or rather choose to forget, that those who commit these genocidal attacks are wholly set against a Jewish state at any price. "Withdraw from the West Bank and the attacks will stop" is, in sum, the essence of the message from French diplomacy, which refuses to see what is staring it in the face. Any area from which Israel has ever withdrawn has immediately been tumed into a base for terrorist attacks against the Israeli population. France acts and behaves as if the threats to Israel were insignificant or of no consequence. As if Israel were Goliath, and the Palestinians David, whereas David today is still Jewish and the Arab countries the real Goliath. Goliaths like the oil-rich countries of Iraq or Iran, with tens of millions of men turned into fanatics by leaders who have no thought for the individual happiness of their people but seek above all to ensure the survival oftheir personal power. Yes, there are still threats to the existence of Israel. Iraq is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, as is Iran. They will not hesitate to use them. Yet France continues to cultivate blindness. I remember, during the trial of Maurice Papon, the representatives of groups such as the MRAP (anti-racist, pacifist movement) or the Ligue de Défense des Droits de l'Homme (human rights league) which now condemn Israel so vehemently and so insincerely: they hurled abuse, unjustly, at Papon, citing one press article or another from the 1930s bearing witness to Nazi anti-Semitism: "What do you mean, you didn't know? Didn't you read the newspapers? The intent to commit genocide can clearly be read between the lines. ..! ". The overt anti-Sernitism of the Nazis in the 1930s is much less vigorous than the overt anti-Sernitism of most Arab countries, which call publicly for the murder of Jews. Nowadays everything is available on the Internet to anyone looking for information: the speeches in the mosques, university theses on "the lies of the genocide", calls from Arab leaders like the Syrian Minister of Defence who says "it is the duty of Arabs to kill a Jew a day", or the statement by the former President of Iran, that he wanted Iran to develop a nuclear weapon in order to use it against Israel. The answer made is that these threats are not to be taken seriously. How can you not take thern seriously when they are followed up by deeds? Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend itself. To assert its right to be there. Israel remembers the words of Arab leaders in 1948. The secretary of the Arab League declared, just prior to the offensive against the Hebrew state and three years after the Shoah, "We will exterminate the Jews in such a way that it will make the massacres committed by the Mongols or the Crusaders pale into insignificance". Israel has declared war not on the Palestinian people but on the terrorist cells. Must Israel give up that fight because these terrorists find refuge in the midst of the civilian population that they have taken hostage, that they have turned into fanatics, and that they use to justify their actions? These leaders know that if the acts of terror continue, Israel will clamp down on the territories in order to protect itself; they know that if the acts of terror are redoubled, Israel has no other solution than to try to eradicate them, at the cost, alas, of civilian casualties. But who rejoices at the death of these innocent civilians? Not the Israelis, but the Palestinian leaders, just as they rejoiced at the deaths of the children they sent into the front line to throw stones while, hiding behind them, came the fighters armed with machine guns who fired on the soldiers in the hope that the children might be hit by stray bullets. What is Sharon being criticised for? For opposing the Oslo process? What then? The future proved him right. Postponing until later such key issues as the problem of the refugees or Jerusalern was inept. Sharon has always said, "you can't trust Arafat". Arafat had everything to gain from the Oslo process: promotion from the Tank of terrorist to that of "President" of the Palestinian Authority, an influx of money from the international community. The Israelis supplied him with weapons for his police force (35 000 men -no other entity or state has such a high proportion of police officers per head of population), weapons that the Palestinian Authority has used to commit attacks against Israel. And all without ever renouncing his real design: to wipe the Jewish state off the map. Fifteen Years ago, that meant casting the Jews into the sea; today, it means tuming the Jews into a minority within Israel. Sharon is said to lack a view of the future, but do you need a view of the future in order to defend yourself? Barak had such a view, but it was rejected by Arafat. So what is left, if not to defend yourself? Allow yourself to be exterminated, as one genocidal act follows another? Without fighting back?
All it would take is one sentence... All it would take is one sentence to put an end to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. One sentence from Yasser Arafat recognising the Jewish nature of the state of Israel and supporting the idea that a just and equitable solution must be found for the refugees without them settling in Israel, a move which would ipso facto alter the Jewish identity of the state. Yes, it would take just one sentence from Yasser Arafat asserting with force, conviction and sincerity that what is needed is two states for two people, in order for confidence to be rebom. Every people needs a foundation of identity on which to build. It would be paradoxical to accord the Jewish people the right to return to a land they were forced to leave two thousand years ago, and then to insist that they should be in a minority in their own land. Israel cannot go further than the proposals put forward by Barak at Camp David and Taba: more or less 100% of the occupied territories, most of the settlements, a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem and a sharing of the Old City, part to be placed under Israeli sovereignty and part under Palestinian sovereignty. These offers of peace Arafat has refused, thereby plunging his people and the Israeli people into bloody tragedy, because the intifada was launched not in response to Israeli violence but in response to an Israeli peace initiative considered fair and equitable at the time not only by the USA but by ail the members of the European Union. Today, even if it restored all the territories, Israel could not win peace from the Palestinians or from the rest of the Arab world. Terrorism would go on as it goes on now, and as it went on even before 1967, at a time when Israel had not yet occupied a West Bank then still part of the Kingdom of Jordan, a country that joined forces with Egypt and Syria, among others, to launch a war of destruction against Israel. The terrorism would go on, as the attacks by Hezbollah go on even though Israel has withdrawn from Southem Lebanon, in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 425, as Syria has not -a fact which seems to leave the international community unmoved. It is abnormal that in France, in the media as well as in political circles, there is a refusal to consider the fundamental questions as to the reasons for the current conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Abnormal that no one says clearly, here is what the Israelis have offered and here is what the Palestinian leaders have demanded. Abnormal that everyone has forgotten how, in the years leading up to 1967, Jordan (which then controlled the West Bank) never offered the Palestinian people a homeland. Abnormal to hear Palestinian leaders denying the fact that there was a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, denying the Jewish people its cultural, religious and political links to the land of Israel. Abnormal, too, that Europe is unwilling to understand how difficult it is for a democracy to negotiate with dictators who have no concern whatsoever for the good of their people but who seek above all else to ensure their own survival by using political or religious propaganda to sow in the minds of their populations the hatred and rejection of others that is the only cement holding their power together. Abnormal that Israel is accused of apartheid, when 20% of the Knesset is made up of Israeli Arabs and yet in France there is not one single member of parliament of North African origin. Abnormal that France does not condemn, unequivocally and vigorously, the omnipresent incitement to hatred of the Jewish people that exists in the Arab world, a mingling of the anti-Semitism of the Middle Ages (Jews drink the blood of Arab babies), the anti-Semitism of the 1930s (the Jews control the world) and neo-Nazi anti-Semitism (the genocide is a fabrication of the Jews). Abnormal that this apprenticeship of hate within the Palestinian education system is financed by the European Union. Abnormal, finally, that it is not openly admitted that countries like Iraq and Iran seek the downfall of Israel. Not small, easily-daunted countries, but countries that have not hesitated to embark on wars in which millions -men, women and children -have lost their lives. Iran, which had no hesitation in sending teenage boys forward to be blown up by Iraqi land-mines. Iraq, that has gassed its own people, fired Scud missiles into Israel and, if it ever acquired a nuclear bomb, would launch it against Tel Aviv. It is up to Europe, and to France in particular, to put pressure on Arafat and on the Palestinian leaders to accept a just and equitable peace that would bring an end to this fatal division. The conditions for peace exist, they are abundantly clear, and there is no other peaceful path on which to engage. Arno Klarsfeld, member of the Paris, New York and Califomia Bars, has taken the Israeli citizenship and the Israeli uniform
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